Vain Fortune eBook

‘He won’t come without writing. He’d
be sure to write for the dog-cart.’

‘I suppose so. There’s no use in
looking out for him.’

But, notwithstanding her certitude on the point, Emily
could not help choosing five o’clock as the
time for a walk, and Julia noticed that the girl’s
feet seemed to turn instinctively towards the lodge.
Often she would leave the flowers she was tending
on the terrace, and stand looking through the dim,
sun-smitten landscape toward the red-brown spot, which
was Southwater, in the middle of the long plain.

XIII

Hubert felt called upon to entertain his friends,
and one evening they all sat dining at Hurlingham
in the long room. The conversation, as usual,
had been about books and pictures.

It was the moment when strings of lanterns were hoisted
from tree to tree. In front of a large space
of sky the coloured globes were crude and trivial;
but in the shadows of the trees by the river, where
the mist rose into the branches, they had begun to
awaken the first impression of melancholy and the
sadness of fête. It was the moment when
the great trees hung heavy and motionless, strangely
green and solemn beneath a slate-coloured sky; and
the plaintive waltz cried on Hungarian fiddle-strings,
till it seemed the soul of this feminine evening.
The fashionable crowd had moved out upon the lawn;
the white dresses were phantom blue, and the men’s
coats faded into obscure masses, darkening the gathering
shadows. It was the moment when voices soften,
and every heart, overpowered with yearning, is impelled
to tell of grief and disillusion; and every moment
the wail of the fiddles grew more unbearable, tearing
the heart to its very depths.

Author and actor-manager walked up the lawn puffing
at their cigars. The others sat watching, knowing
that the opportunity had come for criticism of their
friend.

‘He does not change much,’ said Harding.
’Circumstances haven’t affected him.
A year ago he lived in a garret re-writing his play
Divorce. He now rewrites Divorce
in a handsome house in Sussex.’

‘I thought he had finished his play,’
said Thompson. ’I heard that he was going
to take a theatre and produce it himself.’

’But did you not hear him say at dinner that
he was re-writing as he rehearsed? I met one
of the actors yesterday. He doesn’t know
what to make of it. He gets a new part every
week to learn.’

‘Do you think he’ll ever produce it?’

’I doubt it. At the last moment he’ll
find that the third act doesn’t satisfy him,
and will postpone the production till the spring.’

‘What do you think of his work?’

’Very intelligent, but a little insipid—­like
himself. Look at him. Il est bien l’homme
de ses ouvres. There is something dry about
him, and his writings are like himself—­hard,
dry and wanting in personal passion.’